Denny Laine is in your ears and in your eyes – if you see McCartney guitarist's Pittsburgh show

Scott Tady @scotttady

Sunday

Jan 6, 2019 at 2:01 AM

PITTSBURGH — Denny Laine looks back fondly on his night in Beaver County.

"That Lincoln Park thing, right, with Peter Bennett?" Laine said. "I made a few friends then I've stayed in touch with through the years.

"And I was given a private tour of the Carnegie Museum of Science."

Laine, guitarist for Paul McCartney's band Wings and a founding member of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers the Moody Blues, performed for hundreds of spectators in 2008 at the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center in Midland. The British Invasion-themed concert was hosted by former Beatles publicist Peter Bennett, a close friend of Beaver's Rick Granati of the Granati Brothers band, which shared the stage with Laine that evening.

Laine heads back to western Pennsylvania for a Jan. 15 show at the Pittsburgh Hard Rock Cafe.

The 74-year-old Englishman and his Moody Wing Band (get it?) will play Wings' acclaimed "Band on the Run" album in its entirety, as well as the Moody Blues' debut album "The Magnificent Moodies."

It's a tour format Laine began in 2017, including a show that May at the Pittsburgh Hard Rock.

He emphasizes this isn't some "tribute" band show, but instead a modern interpretation of two landmark albums. Laine said the now-common practice of performing full albums sequentially just seemed to work, and is sort of a throwback anyway.

"A lot of tribute bands out there made it trendy," Laine said. "But that's how we used to do it, release a new album then go out and tour on it. What I'm doing now is modern versions of those songs, not a copycat of the record. We're bringing it up-to-date."

Fresh tweaks to any arrangements — be they to his mighty guitar riffs on "Band on the Run" songs like "Jet" or "Let Me Roll It," or to the vocals on "The Magnificent Moodies" songs, like the lead-off track, a cover of James Brown's "I'll Go Crazy" — make things more interesting for Laine.

"It gets me across," he said.

Laine will perform “Mull of Kintyre,” a song he co-wrote with McCartney that reached No. 1 in the U.K. in 1977.

Though the biggest reaction from Pittsburgh fans likely will come for the "Band on the Run," title track, one of McCartney's most beloved post-Beatles tunes.

"That was three songs turned into one, which wasn't that unusual then," Laine said. "The Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues — progressive bands — would do arrangements like that."

Naturally, everyone wants to know: What was it like touring the world alongside McCartney and being his right-hand man in the studio throughout the 1970s?

"It was easy for us to work together," Laine said. "We knew each other from way before Wings. (The Moody Blues) did the Beatles' second British tour. And we had the same sort of musical tastes."

As impressionable youths, Laine and McCartney both learned about American music by listening to U.S. Armed Forces Network radio broadcasts emanating from Germany.

"That's how we kind of got into it," Laine said.

One day while listening to a stack of 45 rpm records from the United States, Laine took a liking to the 1962 soul/R&B song "Go Now," sung by Bessie Banks. He convinced Moody Blues bandmates it would be a great track to cover on their 1964 debut. Laine sang lead vocals on "Go Now," which became the Moody Blues' breakout hit. Laine's soulful, emotional rendering of a song about a dissolving romantic relationship proved irresistible to radio, and became the Moody Blues' lone chart-topper.

Although pop-rock in nature, "Go Now," shows early evidence of the future progressive-rock sound that the Moody Blues would help bring to the world.

"I'm quite proud I was part of it," Laine said.

He certainly felt proud on April 14, getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Moody Blues, an honor many felt was long overdue for the band.

Laine said he was ambivalent toward initial snubs by the Rock Hall.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I didn't know much about the whole thing for a long time," he said. "I didn't care if I was in it — well, not until people start plugging for you. Then when a lot of my friends began pushing for us, and even Steven Van Zandt on the Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, I think that helped."

When it came time for the induction ceremony, Laine enjoyed the recognition as an architect of the Moody Blues sound, even though he had left the band in 1966.

"I did get a kick out of (the induction ceremony), and I got to meet a lot of great people," he said.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.